Selenium IDE | interface and components
To run the Selenium IDE, simply select it from the Firefox Tools menu. It opens as follows with an empty script-editing window and a menu for loading, or creating new test cases.
IDE Features
Menu Bar
The File menu has options for Test Case and Test Suite (suite of Test Cases). Using these you can add a new Test Case, open a Test Case, save a Test Case, export Test Case in a language of choice. You can also open the recent Test Case. All these options are also available for Test Suite.
The Edit menu allows copy, paste, delete, undo, and select all operations for editing the commands in test case. The Options menu allows the changing of settings. You can set the timeout value for certain commands, add user-defined user extensions to the base set of Selenium commands, and specify the format (language) used when saving test cases. The Help menu is the standard Firefox Help menu; only one item on this menu–UI-Element Documentation–pertains to Selenium-IDE.
Toolbar
The toolbar contains buttons for controlling the execution of test cases, including a step feature for debugging test cases. The right-most button, the one with the red-dot, is the record button.
- Speed Control: controls how fast test case runs.
- Run All: Runs the entire test suite when a test suite with multiple test cases is loaded.
- Run: Runs the currently selected test. When only a single test is loaded this button and the Run All button have the same effect.
- Pause/Resume: Allows stopping and re-starting of a running test case.
- Step: Allows you to “step” through a test case by running it one command at a time. Use for debugging test cases.
- TestRunner Mode: Allows you to run the test case in a browser loaded with the Selenium-Core TestRunner. The TestRunner is not commonly used now and is likely to be deprecated. This button is for evaluating test cases for backwards compatibility with the TestRunner. Most users will probably not need this button.
- Apply Rollup Rules: This advanced feature allows repetitive sequences of Selenium commands to be grouped into a single action.
- Record: Records the user’s browser actions.
